A user on the SteamRep forums who goes by base64 has potentially uncovered evidence of organized Team Fortress 2 market fraud. On Sunday morning, the community investigator noticed an unusual jump in the price (in TF2's common currency of Keys) and volume of Earbud trades. Earbuds, if you're not familiar, are an especially valuable TF2 item. Further investigation revealed that the Keys used to purchase the Earbuds at an above-average price had consecutive or regularly alternating (odd or even) original ID numbers, which indicates they were likely purchased in bulk directly from the Mann Co. Store.

That brought up questions, like, say, why would someone purchase thousands of Keys for $2.49 each, trade 28 to 30 of them at a time for Earbuds, and then sell those Earbuds for 700 Russian rubles, for a loss of about $47 each? Base64's thorough investigation can only lead to educated speculation, but it's all very suspicious.

The big drama version of the story is that Russian mobsters are using Team Fortress 2 to launder money. Since this isn't a Neal Stephenson novel, the more likely story is that someone's sitting on a few stolen credit card numbers. Some SteamRep posters say base64's research reveals "nothing new," suggesting that this activity is commonplace. Whatever the case, credit to base64 for uncovering so much via Valve's API and interviews with Earbud sellers involved—if nothing else, it's a fascinating study of digital forensics. Check out the post for the full investigation.

The good people at TF2 Mixup (actually a collaboration between Gamers United, Vanilla TF2, eXtv, and Kritzkast) are gathering another League of Extraordinary Internet People to fight for the benefit of Doctors Worldwide in Team Fortress 2. Announced today, the line-up includes StarCraft 2 emissary Day, TF2 creator Robin Walker, YouTuber Freddie Wong, Notch, Counter-Strike pro cArn, and me, apparently.

The match will take place in early December. More importantly, you can win a chance to play alongside us by donating to Doctors Worldwide through the tournament. The more you donate, the higher your chances of earning a spot on the server. How much are you willing to spend for a chance to shoot Tay Zonday with TF2 weapons?

The last TF2 Mixup, videoed below, was a happy success, raising $14,462.25 for Child's Play.

Hopeful applicants of Valve's Linux testing survey have much to rejoice today as a limited-access beta client for Steam's Linux version awaits testing starting today. Valve's official announcement states the studio received over 60,000 entries for its request for testers, and a slowly increasing group of players will receive access to the client going forward.

Steam Linux operates on Ubuntu 12.04. "An overwhelming majority of beta applicants have reported they’re running the Ubuntu distro of Linux,” Steam Linux team member Frank Crockett wrote. “We intend to support additional popular distros in the future, and we’ll prioritize development for these based on user feedback.”

Team Fortress 2 leads the pack of two dozen games available for Linux users which is viewable from the client itself. Valve still seeks more testers for future Linux betas, so head over to the survey page if you're interested.

Meanwhile, GOG's Trevor Longino recently criticized Valve for supporting only one distro. While GOG doesn't yet have Linux support, Longino says "...we want to try to get it where the majority of gamers, if they’re on Linux, will be able to get a game and expect it works."

For Valve's employees, working at one of the most secretive development studios around constitutes a once-in-a-respawn experience. The leakage of Valve's employee handbook earlier this year colorfully outlined a flat management structure culturing a counterintuitive emphasis on peer-driven independence. Speaking to Seattle Interactive Conference attendees yesterday (as reported by GeekWire), Valve Product Designer Greg Coomer said the same free-form philosophy governing the company's work ethic also factors into firing someone.

"I wish that we had covered firing in the employee handbook," Coomer said. "It was one of the things that we left out. We tried writing it, but we didn't feel like we were capturing how Valve thinks about (firing) in a well enough way. It was almost a wording problem. We couldn't get it done in the time that we wouldn't to finish the handbook. The short answer of how we handle terminations, really, is the same as we approach all other decisions at the company: It's a peer-driven process.

"If it turns out that we made a bad hiring decision, or that somebody is just not working out, there’s a method we use to get the people who are involved in the same room and to walk through the decision about what should really happen as a result of this person not functioning very well. Some of the details are kind of boring, but the main answer is that it's peer-driven, just like we evaluate each other as peers.”

I wonder what a caricaturized "Termination and You" chapter in the handbook would look like—probably the Pyro immolating an office chair or something. Still, Coomer attributed Valve's higher rate of self-fulfillment to the significant flexibility it bestows upon its workers, saying, “There are attributes that other companies have quoted about themselves that they allow their (employees) to spend some fraction of their time actually deciding on their own what to work on, but at Valve that percentage of your time is 100 percent. Every single person is responsible for deciding what they do every day."

Not even a Medic can help them now. Zombies are coming to Team Fortress 2 as part of the fortnight-long Halloween event that will add an undead MvM mission and a new King of the Hill map haunted by the ghost of the Soldier's nemesis/angry housemate, Merasmus. He's placed a magical booby trap on the control point that will spin a "wheel of fate" every time it changes hands. What it does, no-one knows. Apart from Valve. "One of many potentially horrible fates await you! Or maybe something good!" they say.

According to the latest post on the Team Fortress 2 site, magic spells will also drop randomly throughout the event. These can be cast on backpack items to give them "shifting paint colors, ghost summoning, flaming footsteps and more." There are also a couple of new achievements to chase. You'll get the first for killing Merasmus (properly, this time). To secure the second you must "get to Skull Island and claim your reward!" Intriguing.

Let's face it: default game UIs often don't have the flexibility we need. TF2's is actually generally excellent, with a number of specific settings that lets you toggle stuff like the appearance of Diablo-style damage numbers when you score a hit. But there's always room for improvement; that's why it's great that we have a PC gaming community full of enthusiasts willing to poke, nudge, and sometimes set fire to UI elements to create a more optimized experience.

We took a look at a payload of TF2 UI modifications and found the following fit for duty.

NoirHUDThe menu screen was gray, flat. Everything was out of focus. I knew I needed to find a way out. A way to bring more contrast to this rat-infested slum of a Backpack screen. NoirHUD came sashaying out of the internet with curvy buttons and deep shades to fill in all that negative space like a moonlit river spilling over a dam. I knew I was about to have the hat-buying experience of my life.

Improved Minimal HUDLess is often more, and appropriately, there's not much to say about this mod beyond that it carries our endorsement for anyone that prefer's TF2's existing Minimal HUD mode. This mod takes the existing mini-UI and makes it easier to read, while fixing issues with text getting cut off. It's also multi-lingual, though (obviously, I hope) incompatible with the default TF2 HUD—you have to enable Minimal HUD mode in Advanced Options. You won't be disappointed.

KBNHudMy personal favorite, KBNHud is less obtrusive than the default display, and adds some cool conveniences like positioning health and ammo on either side of your crosshair so you don't have to look all the way down in the corner to know how many bullets you have in your gun and/or your torso.

Disable Pyrovision HUDMaybe you find yourself in a situation where you want to have a plucky Baloonicorn follow you around, but you can't handle the sickeningly-sweet alterations to your perception that it causes. This lightweight tweak will allow you to equip items that normally cause "Pyrovision" while keeping your ocular nerve firmly grounded in the realm of the less physically painful default UI.

This season's Team Fortress 2 Halloween event is almost upon us. According to the latest edition of the reliably hilarious series of TF2 comic strips, evil ghost lord Merasmus will indeed be behind this weekend's spooky shenanigans. Based on events depicted within the strip, we may get to see some zombie Raccoons. Or a Ghostbusters style Marshmallow Man made of sour cream. Or, more likely, none of those things. Still, it's worth a read for the gags alone. You'll find the whole thing on the Team Fortress 2 site.

Quick! Flee like you're out-sprinting a zombie and head to Team Fortress 2's webpage. See anything different? That's right, The Spy, usually so dapper, looks like he's been singing "Klaatu Barada Nikto". As is the case with things that suddenly appear on the Team Fortress electronic blog, when you click on it it takes you down a rabbit hole. Tap your mouse on his head and join me. Wheedly whee, wheedly whee, wheedly...

...whee! Thanks for following me down. Ooh, look! It's a page of the Teufort Reader, advertising all kinds of things. I'm going to hazard a guess and say the Wizardcon advert is the salient detail. It's dominated by Merasmus, who plucked the Demo Man's eye from his skull to unleash the Monoculus. What foul beasties he will be responsible for this time around? As usual, it's probably impossible to tell with Team Fortress 2. They're already playing games: if you'll note the bottom right corner, under the torn page. It's clearly a code. No doubt the beginning of a torturous game that'll unleash the info when unlocked. Fiends! I remember when they would just tell us what they were up to. Good times.

A Slashdot user has spotted that the beta version of Team Fortress 2 has received a sneaky update, introducing changes which emit the heady and appealing whiff of Linux support.

"Among the modified files are some Linux-related files including a hardware driver compatibility list, optimal graphics settings, and a shell script launcher (previously only for OS X, now with a case for Linux as well)," writes Slashdot submitter spacenet.

Valve have only acknowledged the existence of this update in a forum post, but not its content, and have yet to update the changelog. Hm! Hm? Hm.

This comes on the back of Valve's announced Steam for Linux private beta, which was said to be going live this month - but has yet to emerge. The interest in Linux also mirrors the inroads the platform is making on Mac - anything, it seems, to put distance between itself and the Windows 8 "catastrophe", as Gabe Newell put it. Can Valve single-handedly usher in a future in which PC gaming is no longer largely synonymous with Windows-gaming? Putting Team Fortress 2 on Linux is certainly a big step in that direction.

Yellow-bellies beware! Valve are cracking down on the cowards who flee games prematurely, leaving their team-mates in the lurch just to avoid an X in their ledger. The changes affect Mann vs Machine mode only, at the moment, and have been designed so as not to penalise people who get booted by the odd connection issue.

The Mann vs. Machine FAQ breaks the changes down. You are only ever punished for abandoning a game. This is different from leaving a game. Abandoning happens when:

You leave a game while playing a Mann Up game on an official server; andYou have not played through a single wave to completion or failure; andThere are 5 or more players currently connected to the server (including you).

Otherwise, you are cool to quit. In fact, even if you do satisfy the abandonment criteria, you will not be punished - at first. The punishments only kick in for repeat offences, though it's not specified exactly how many or often. Luckily, if you leave the game by pressing the disconnect button, you will be informed if you're at risk of punishment.

Said punishment means being placed in low-priority matchmaking pools, making it longer to get into a game.

If you just crash out, or your connection drops, your spot will be reserved for three minutes, allowing you to rejoin without incurring any penalty. Getting kicked for idling is considered the same as quitting intentionally, so you can be penalised. However, being vote-kicked does not count, and you won't be penalised for leaving. Though you may still be an asshole, which is a kind of punishment in itself.

So, quitters, cowards and wheyfaced weaklings - you have been warned. In the words of Saxton Hale, the not-actually-real-though-I-wish-he-was President and CEO of Mann Co:

"I gave you mercs one simple thing to do: Defend Mann Co. from an unstoppable robot horde. Now Bidwell's telling me some of you are abandoning the fight in the middle of attacks. Firstly: What am I even paying you in found money that falls out of robots for?

Secondly — actually, put this first, it's more important — I am coming for you."